V. The fifth letter, dated Sept. 3, 1526. It pertains to the famous expedition to Honduras.[1140] It is called Carta quinta de relacion, and was discovered through Robertson’s instrumentality, but not printed at length till it appeared in the Coleccion de documentos inéditos (España), iv. 8-167, with other “relaciones” on this expedition. George Folsom reprinted it in New York in 1848 as “carta sexta ... publicada ahora por primera vez” by mistake for “carta quinta.”[1141] It was translated and annotated by Gayangos for the Hakluyt Society in 1868.[1142] Gayangos had already included it in his edition of the Cartas, 1866, and it had also been printed by Vedia in Ribadeneyras’ Biblioteca de autores Españoles (1852), vol. xxii., and later in the Biblioteca histórica de la Iberia (1870). Extracts in English are given in the appendix of Prescott’s Mexico, vol. iii. Mr. Kirk, the editor of Prescott, doubts if the copy in the Imperial Library at Vienna is the original, because it has no date. A copy at Madrid, purporting to be made from the original by Alonzo Diaz, is dated Sept. 3, 1526,[1143] and is preferred by Gayangos, who collated its text with that of the Vienna Library. Various other less important letters of Cortés have been printed from time to time.[1144]
In estimating the letters of Cortés as historical material, the soldierly qualities of them impressed Prescott, and Helps is struck with their directness so strongly that he is not willing to believe in the prevarications or deceits of any part of them. H. H. Bancroft,[1145] on the contrary, discovers in them “calculated misstatements, both direct and negative.” It is well known that Bernal Diaz and Pedro de Alvarado made complaints of their leader’s too great willingness to ignore all others but himself.[1146]
B. Three Contemporary Writers,—Gomara, Bernal Diaz, and Sahagun.—Fortunately we have various other narratives to qualify or confirm the recitals of the leader.
In 1540, when he was thirty years old, Francisco Lopez Gomara became the chaplain and secretary of Cortés. In undertaking an historical record in which his patron played a leading part, he might be suspected to write somewhat as an adulator; and so Las Casas, Diaz, and many others have claimed that he did, and Muñoz asserts that Gomara believed his authorities too easily.[1147] That the Spanish Government made a show of suppressing his book soon after it was published, and kept the edict in their records till 1729, is rather in favor of his honest chronicling. Gomara had good claims for consideration in a learned training, a literary taste, and in the possession of facilities which his relations with Cortés threw in his way; and we find him indispensable, if for no other reason, because he had access to documentary evidence which has since disappeared. His questionable reputation for bias has not prevented Herrera and other later historians placing great dependence on him, and a native writer of the beginning of the seventeenth century, Chimalpain, has translated Gomara, adding some illustrations for the Indian records.[1148]
Gomara’s book is in effect two distinct ones, though called at first two parts of a Historia general de las Indias. Of these the second part—La conquista de México—appeared earliest, at Saragossa in 1552, and is given to the Conquest of Mexico, while the first part, more particularly relating to the subjugation of Peru, appeared in 1553.[1149] What usually passes for a second edition appeared at Medina del Campo, also in 1553;[1150] and it was again reprinted at Saragossa in 1554, this time as two distinct works,—one, Cronica de la Nueva España con la conquista de México; and the other, La historia general de las Indias y Nuevo Mundo.[1151] The same year (1554) saw several editions in Spanish at Antwerp, with different publishers.[1152] An Italian edition followed in 1555-1556, for one titlepage, Historia del ... capitano Don Ferdinando Cortés, is dated 1556, and a second, Historia de México, has 1555,—both at Rome.[1153]
Other editions, more or less complete, are noted as published in Venice in 1560, 1564, 1565, 1566, 1570, 1573, 1576, and 1599.[1154] The earliest French edition appeared at Paris in 1568 and 1569, for the two dates and two imprints seem to belong to one issue; and its text—a not very creditable translation by Fumée—was reproduced in the editions of 1577, 1578, 1580, and with some additions in 1584, 1587, 1588, and 1597.[1155] The earliest edition in English omits much. It is called The Pleasant Historie of the Conquest of the Weast India, now called New Spayne, atchieved by the worthy Prince Hernando Cortes, Marques of the valley of Huaxacac, most delectable to reade, translated out of the Spanishe tongue by T[homas] N[icholas], published by Henry Bynneman in 1578.[1156] Gomara himself warned his readers against undertaking a Latin version, as he had one in hand himself; but it was never printed.[1157]